Room With A View
“It’s the alcohol! I
know that this is the constant binging,” a wife cried to her husband of over 40
years in the hospital bed beside my father, who was recovering from surgery.
This is not what I expected to witness whilst at the
hospital taking care of Dad over the weekend, but it is what I got. It shook
me.
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The sun sets over Lake Champlain | view from the room |
It was the morning after Dad’s surgery and he was recovering
fine (still is, but this is not that story). His neighbor in room ‘622 with a
view’ the previous evening had been a surly fellow who had a stroke, but
couldn’t wait to get outside for a smoke. Meanwhile, his family of ashtray hearts
bantered around the bedside, complaining how far they had to walk to find a
place to light up. “Just go daown to the gararge and smoke in the truck—it’s
closa,” one family member suggested. Again, this is not that story.
When I arrived the next morning, I noticed the new neighbor.
Dad told me he had arrived late the night before. I’d later learn from the fact
there is no privacy maintained by a sheet with hooks in the ceiling that this
neighbor was a 70-year-old retiree. He was a former doctor at this very
hospital, and a good one based on his address in Shelburne on the lake. He and
his wife would spend the next couple hours arguing about many things, she
pleading, he dismissive of her and her pleas.
He apparently had suffered a seizure of some kind, though you
wouldn’t know it from his demeanor—he looked and seemed just fine to me. He had
also been on the tail-end of a 4 day booze binge, which was par for the course
for this avid golfer since retiring. What was supposed to be a time of great
joy in his life, was “the worst thing that ever happened to him,” according to
his loving wife. She told doctors and nurses, and anyone else that would listen,
that he had been anxious, depressed, lonely, and even suicidal since retiring. He
was unable to find ways to calm his mind and to keep it from slipping away from
him. I learned he loves to run, has a drink “or two” before bed, and again when
he wakes up.
When the doctors finally came in to discuss their findings,
things took an even darker turn. I wanted so badly to give them the privacy
they deserved, but this hanging sheet told all and no effort was made to hold
back. “Early onset Alzheimer’s” was the cause. More episodes were to be
expected, more tests would be needed. But, alcohol wasn’t the problem here. It
was a problem, but not the one the doctors were inclined to speak of.
The wife pleaded with anyone who would listen. “He was binging. This has to be because of
all the drinking. You have got to tell him to stop drinking, he won’t listen to
me,” she said sobbing, pushing through tears. She was shocked to learn her
husband wasn’t just an alcoholic—now he was an alcoholic who was losing his
memory.
The doctors calmed her as best they could, but she left the
room crying while they continued to speak to her husband.
“She thinks it’s the booze,” he said. “She wanted it to be
the booze.”
The doctor suggested that the drink certainly wasn’t going
to help and offered to refer him to a psychiatrist, but mostly focused on the
need for him to go to memory center for more testing. The test results did not
weigh heavily on the man and he was mostly concerned about his lost sweatshirt
from the ambulance ride. He mentioned
how his father was a shell of himself at death and how he didn’t want to be the
same. He talked over and over about his own chart. He read his MRI and saw his
brain had shrunk since his previous test and he knew everything was totally out
of his control. He seemed resigned to his fate.
Later, his wife returned still crying, still pleading with everyone.
She had hoped the hospital could at least solve one very big problem, when life
just piled on another. Eventually they left, discharged back to their life of
privacy, one with walls thicker than a nicely hung sheet dividing a small room
in two.
Dad did not say much and just watched his TV, hoping to get
out soon himself. But I could not stop considering that man’s life as one
direction my future could have gone. It was surreal. I felt like Ebeneezer Scrooge being flown
around by the Ghost of Christmas Future, looking down on what could have been
my fate. To think about how booze can cause that kind of strain, to make a
married couple of 40 years seem like they hardly know each other. Their goals,
polar opposites. She clearly loved him, he didn’t seem to even care about
himself, much less her. It was awful to watch, to hear. So much denial, so
fucking sad.
He said things like, “Well, no need to stop now,” and “What
the hell is the point, I’m just going to die anyway,” and “My wife thinks I’m
an alcoholic…maybe I am, but who cares…I knew this had nothing to do with
booze.”
I’m so thankful to be where I am
today, 846 days free of the crutch of alcohol. I know the numbness this man was searching for. This was a hell of a reminder I didn’t
expect this weekend. It certainly got me thinking and there was so much to
learn from their situation. Life is easy to take for granted.
My Dad is doing well. His story also involves retirement,
but that isn’t the most important part for now. Perhaps I’ll write about that
soon as well.
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